Travelogue

Weather yesterday: much cooler than the previous week (high about 10°C), but gorgeous blue skies with puffy white clouds, bright sunshine, with intermittent rain showers.

shalmestere was concerned that she was "coming down with something", and was in all kinds of hurt after a day or two of hill-climbing in Toledo, so we took it easy yesterday, avoiding anything that involved lots of climbing. Fortunately, much of the tourist area in Granada is stretched out along the street along the river, which is about 20 m from our hotel, so not much hill-climbing was necessary. (The river is also about 10m straight down, in a gorge that doesn't invite pedestrian traffic).

In the US, the word "river" implies "navigable": if you couldn't put a cargo or multi-passenger boat into it, you wouldn't call it a "river" but rather a "creek", "brook", "stream", or "branch". And most old cities are built on one or more rivers. In Europe, most old cities are likewise built on rivers, but many of them are only a few meters wide. A "river" serves as a source of fresh water; transportation, if you get it, is a bonus. Toledo is tucked into the sharp bend of a small-but-navigable river; the old part of the much larger Granada is built on two hills on either side of a river that I'm sure I could cross with a running broad jump. Except that the gorge isn't wide enough to make the running approach. And in Madrid, the current capital and the biggest city in the country, I gather there is a Río Manzanares that (according to photos on Google Maps) is at least 10m wide, but we never came across it.

Anyway, we bought some yummy empanadas for breakfast, walked a few hundred meters west to the Alcaicería, the Moorish shopping district (rebuilt in the 19th century for tourists after being destroyed by fire), bought some sweets, bought some souvenirs and 1/12-scale miniatures, didn't stand in line to get into the 16th-century Royal Chapel where Ferdinand, Isabella, Philip, and Juana were buried, bought some more sweets, visited the one remaining Moorish caravanserai in the city (with its 14th-century carved-limestone gate), returned to the hotel and took a siesta (not that it's hot out, but we were tired).

Then got up and walked a few hundred meters east, visited the Museo Arqueológico (which is in mid-renovation, so admission is free), tried to visit two Arabic baths (one is functioning again as a bath/spa, and we decided not to spend the time and money on that, while the one that's just an archaeological site was closed), bought some more sweets, sat on benches overlooking the river and underlooking the Alhambra across the river, and returned to the hotel.

I heard drums and trumpets outside and guessed there was another Semana Santa procession going on, so I ran downstairs to see. A brass band was just finishing up on the front steps of the nearest church, when another brass band marched up the street and stopped. I saw a guy walk by in what looked like a KKK pointy-hooded costume, only purple for Lent, followed by several choirboys also in purple (at least one carrying a pointy hat). There was much milling around as though waiting for something. Then the latter brass band started playing again and marched back down the street towards the downtown business district whence they had come.

By this time shalmestere had come outside to see what was to be seen, and we walked a hundred meters to an Italian restaurant where we had some delicious spaghetti carbonara, then returned to the hotel, read and did DuoLingo Spanish exercises for a while, and went to bed.

Today we're scheduled to pick up a rental car that we'll use to visit the next several cities and towns. Not sure how close I can get to the hotel with a private car: the hotel itself is on a callito with steps, while the cobblestoned riverbank "road" is variously 2-4 m wide and full of pedestrians.

Travelogue

Checked out of our room in Granada. We were scheduled to pick up a rental car this morning for the next phase of the trip, so I asked at the front desk how close I could get to the hotel with a private car, and they said "not at all close". A taxi can legally get within about 10m, but a private car, nowhere near. They recommended that instead we take a taxi, with our luggage, to the car rental office (at the train station), get the car, and leave from there. So we did that. It took a long time to get through all the paperwork, although the two German fräuleine who were there several minutes before us weren't finished by the time we left.

The car is a Nissan "Yuke", a model I've never heard of in the US. It's considered a "compact" by European standards, which is good because anything larger wouldn't fit through some of the city streets we've seen. It has room for two people and two suitcases, but we can't fit both of our suitcases into the trunk simultaneously; we have to either put one in the back seat or lower the back seats to fit them side by side.

Drove south from Granada, with snow-capped mountain peaks to be seen to east and west (although we didn't get nearly that high). Four-lane limited-access highway all the way to Motril, then a different four-lane limited-access highway part of the way west before we switched to a smaller, twistier but more scenic, road that paralleled the highway along the Mediterranean coast.

Stopped at Nerja, which is a touristy resort town but by all accounts one of the less-noxious ones; anyway, we walked out the "Balcón de Europa" to look at the sea, then had a forgettable but slow lunch, then some excellent helado (dark chocolate and orange), then walked down to the beach to observe enormous waves crashing dramatically into enormous rocks, then walked along the coastal footpath for a few hundred meters to observe more enormous waves crashing dramatically into enormous rocks.

Decided we were getting chilled and tired, so we returned to the car (conveniently parked for 2€/hour underneath the main square) and headed for the night's lodgings in Málaga.

I had reserved (and paid for) a double room in a hostel in Málaga, for two nights, planning to use Málaga as a home base for a day-trip to Ronda tomorrow. The instructions from the hostel said "contact us at least 24 hours before arrival to arrange check-in," and I hadn't done that, but I called them on the phone several times and eventually got through. The guy I talked to had English no better than my Spanish, and he suggested we converse by text rather than voice (although he said "Send me a wsp", which is apparently a standard abbreviation in Spanish-language text messages... or is this a thing in English too?). The directions I had to the hostel involved a last few blocks on "restricted travel" roads, which I thought might mean taxi-only or something like that, so I wanted to clarify the directions. He replied "I have moved you to a better grade hotel; here is the address of the hotel, and the address of the nearest parking garage. Call me when you're 10 minutes away." So I put the two addresses into Google Maps and had it feed me turn-by-turn directions. Some of the route looked a little weird, cutting through residential apartment complexes along the way to a hotel in the center city, but Google Maps told me I was less than 10 minutes away, so at a stoplight I texted the guy to say so.

Then Google Maps started telling me to turn onto roads that were blocked by police cars, or blocked by traffic cones, or theoretically-two-way-but-currently-one-way-the-wrong-way, or even permanently blocked off as pedestrian zones. When I passed up these opportunities to interact with local law enforcement, Google Maps directed me down to the docks to turn a sharp left onto another major road, then through another roundabout onto a park road that I was supposed to take for half a mile before taking a U-turn to get back to the same roundabout... except the park road was open to taxis only, so I didn't take that either. And this went on for 45 minutes, and none of us understood a word Google Maps was saying, until I decided to just head towards the hotel and take the first parking garage I saw within a mile of it. We found a parking garage, allegedly 7 minutes' walk from the hotel, found a parking space that I could almost get our compact car into, but not quite, then found another parking space that I could get our compact car into as long as I let shalmestere out first. I texted the guy again to say I had just found parking, and would be there in 7 minutes. We got our suitcases and stuff out of the car and headed out... until a guy from the parking garage staff saw us pulling suitcases and helpfully pointed out that this parking garage didn't allow overnight parking. He said another parking garage, only 100 meters away, did, so we loaded everything back into the car and headed out. Except that I hadn't paid for my five minutes of parking at a kiosk, and one apparently can't pay at the exit gate, so I was stuck at the exit gate with several cars behind me, unable to back up and get to a kiosk, until one of the drivers walked up, pushed the "help" button, and I explained the situation until somebody on the staff opened the gate. The other parking garage, as advertised, was only 100 m away, all right turns... but that entrance was only open to monthly-pass-holders, or something like that. The guy who turned us away from it explained that there was another entrance to the same garage another 100 m ahead, all right turns, so we followed his instructions, and saw the cheery sign "Parking entrada COMPLETA" (i.e. full).

We turned into a surface parking lot where there were no spaces, but at least we were out of traffic long enough to do some Web research. We found another hotel, outside the city center, adjacent to the airport and with its own parking lot, and drove there, giving up on the one in the city center altogether. And that's where we are tonight and tomorrow. It's not picturesque, it's not in a cute neighborhood, but it's got parking and highway access and a bed and that'll do for now.